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Friday, November 25, 2011

I realized while cropping these pictures and uploading them that the majority of the battle reports I have posted have been vs eChris. From reading these reports the readers would think he is my only opponent. This is not the case. I think eChris likes seeing battle reports posted, so he consistently reminds me to take pictures during our games. As such, our games are the ones that get posted. With that said, here is another Battle Report to be posted. I really expected this to be a slaughter when I saw eChris put out his Lilith crew, but I jumped in with a smile.

Set-up

This was a game we played as part of our ongoing Achievement League. I am playing Arcanists in the League while eChris is playing Neverborn. We agreed to a 30 point game, flipped standard deployment, and flipped who would deploy first, resulting in my having first deployment. We were playing on a small village board set-up prior to the game.

We started flipping for strategies, with eChris flipping Line in the Sand and me flipping Distract. eChris contemplated burning a stone to re-flip but decided to stick with his choice. I proceeded to my case and contemplated what to take. My Arcanist choices were Kaeris, Colette, and Rasputina. I had had some luck with Raspy previously on Distract, plus I only had 1 gunsmith painted. I did not think Colette would be very good at Distract, so stuck with Raspy for the mission. At 30 points I figured I would take a fairly direct crew, grabbing 2 SS miners (MVP in previous games) and 2 Silent Ones to heal them up. I grabbed the essence and decided to sit on an 8 SS pool.

Upon selecting my crew, I glanced across to see what eChris was bringing so I could pick my strategies. He brought Lilith, 2 Lilitu, Lelu, a Tot, and the puking snake. With that in mind, the choice on schemes really fell to what I had left to accomplish for the league. My choices were Bodyguard, Breakthrough, Extermination, Eye for an Eye, Frame for Murder, Stake a Claim, Steal Relic, and Reflections of December. Looking over that list here were my thoughts:

Breakthrough - Not likely since I would need the miners for hitting power

Extermination - Very unlikely to near impossible

Eye for an Eye - tough but possible

Frame for Murder - Impossible unless I hide it, and this game was not worth hiding a Scheme

Stake a Claim - Not likely, but possible

Steal Relic - I did not want to be close to Lilith without attacking

Reflections of December - Possible, and I am not sure how many more games I will have with Raspy

Bodyguard - Possible, only because I will have a fair number of SS to prevent damage.

My turn started in a fairly mundane fashion. The essence linked with Raspy, moved forward and cast pillars to cover up the middle dynomite marker. Following that the miners dug up soulstones for Raspy to use, and the Silent Ones healed the miners back to full. Each silent one, on thier activation, cast other spells to try and surge and stack my hand for later in the game. eChris used his turn more productively, sprinting and transposing models around the board and grabbing the first objective on the left of the board (from my perspective). He pulled forward and sent Lelu to work breaking down one of the pillars and activated a second objective as well. Not bad, 2 objectives on turn 1 is a strong start for eChris, and puts me a bit on the back foot.

From eChris's side of the board.

Turn 2

Turn 2 turned up the pressure with lots of action. I do not remember the exact steps of the turn (unfortunately), but to sum up it went something like this. eChris activated Lelu, smashed apart the second ice pillar, then moved over and activated a third objective. In conjunction, Lilitu drifted around the house and started luring one of my silent ones forward. I was pulled up, but resisted a couple times. My silent one activated and put up north wind, just covering Raspy where she was sitting. eChris moved his second Lilitu forward and pulled the Silent one the rest of the way into the scrum, but was not able to get any attacks through. To get some range, the second Silent one moved forward to get Raspy in range of North Wind, then popped the spell up. Lilith made a run across the street to position for the other two objectives. Raspy activated and blasted into the scrum, killing lelu with blasts and leaving the Lilitu's with some damage. Raspy finished her turn by putting up ice pillars to block Lilith from getting inside the building and grabbing her objective there. eChris ran his Tot to the back of the board, then followed up with the totem transposing one of the Lilitu's to get her to safety. I activated my miners, ate a soulstone for Overdrive, then moved forward and tunneled. At the end of the turn I shifted one tunnel marker forward (the corpse counter) and the second one to the left between the small and large houses. My goal was to threaten eChris's crew with 1 miner while the other went to deactivate dynamite.

From his side of the board

Turn 3

Turn 3 let me finish what I had started on the previous turn. eChris started by moving to threaten Raspy with his Tot. I responded by moving my silent one away from the objective and damaging the tot with her healing spell. eChris moved his rear lilitu forward to position near the center of the board and lured my silent one forward. My silent one moved closer to the tot, pulsed and killed it off. eChris moved the second Lilitu to the center of the board, getting Raspy, totem, and a silent one in melee range. Raspy activated, defensive stance, then walked out of combat. I forgot at that point to pull my totem to me with link, leaving it engaged. I tried to use my (0) spell to knock one of the Lilitu's down but failed the cast. I then followed up shooting my blast spell into combat. Flipping for the targeting in melee ended up with my targeting a Lilitu. I then flipped the red joker for my irresistible flip, realizing that had I remembered to snap my totem, I would have had that joker on my cast. I followed up with a cast and stone to drop severe damage on one Lilitu, and blast onto the second. This left one of them at 1 wound remaining, and the second at 2. Lilith then moved out from around the house, but I do not remember what she did. My totem dropped two more ice pillars to block Lilith from moving directly to Raspy next turn, then it came time for moving the Miners. Miner #1 moved to be next to Lilith, and #2 moved onto the far left objective. At the end of the turn the two Lilitu's healed one of them up to 6 wounds, and the other one died.

Turn 4

At the start of the turn, I brought both miners up from Tunneling. I won initiative (13 to a 12) and started with the Miner next to Lilith. He attacked 3 times, missing 2 attacks, and dived back below ground. Lilitu started by luring and killing a Silent One then moving forward to engage Raspy. The second silent one moved forward and pulsed near the Lilitu, putting 2 damage on her. Lilith activated, broke through the ice pillar and charged the silent one to kill her. Shatter had Lilitu down to 1 wound, and had Lilith had prevented most everything. Raspy activated and threw everything she had at Lilith, killing Lilitu in the blasting. The soulstone miner dug up another stone for Raspy, then the tunneled one moved over next to Lilith.

Turn 5 & 6

Turn 5 started with the miner popping out and then I again won initiative. The miner attacked and got a luck shot off on Lilith, killing her. Raspy then moved forward stand next to one of the activate markers. The non-insignificant miner shut off the far left objective. On turn 6 Raspy and the other miner shut off the remaining objectives.

The game ended with a win to me (very unlikely game). I think there were mistakes made on both sides, but the bulk came down to eChris focusing on his line in the sand early in the game and not picking apart Raspy's crew, allowing me to build up my stones and start picking apart his crew. Final score, Raspy 8 -> Lilith 2 (holdout).

I realized while cropping these pictures and uploading them that the majority of the battle reports I have posted have been vs eChris. From reading these reports the readers would think he is my only opponent. This is not the case. I think eChris likes seeing battle reports posted, so he consistently reminds me to take pictures during our games. As such, our games are the ones that get posted. With that said, here is another Battle Report to be posted. I really expected this to be a slaughter when I saw eChris put out his Lilith crew, but I jumped in with a smile.

Set-up

This was a game we played as part of our ongoing Achievement League. I am playing Arcanists in the League while eChris is playing Neverborn. We agreed to a 30 point game, flipped standard deployment, and flipped who would deploy first, resulting in my having first deployment. We were playing on a small village board set-up prior to the game.

We started flipping for strategies, with eChris flipping Line in the Sand and me flipping Distract. eChris contemplated burning a stone to re-flip but decided to stick with his choice. I proceeded to my case and contemplated what to take. My Arcanist choices were Kaeris, Colette, and Rasputina. I had had some luck with Raspy previously on Distract, plus I only had 1 gunsmith painted. I did not think Colette would be very good at Distract, so stuck with Raspy for the mission. At 30 points I figured I would take a fairly direct crew, grabbing 2 SS miners (MVP in previous games) and 2 Silent Ones to heal them up. I grabbed the essence and decided to sit on an 8 SS pool.

Upon selecting my crew, I glanced across to see what eChris was bringing so I could pick my strategies. He brought Lilith, 2 Lilitu, Lelu, a Tot, and the puking snake. With that in mind, the choice on schemes really fell to what I had left to accomplish for the league. My choices were Bodyguard, Breakthrough, Extermination, Eye for an Eye, Frame for Murder, Stake a Claim, Steal Relic, and Reflections of December. Looking over that list here were my thoughts:

Breakthrough - Not likely since I would need the miners for hitting power

Extermination - Very unlikely to near impossible

Eye for an Eye - tough but possible

Frame for Murder - Impossible unless I hide it, and this game was not worth hiding a Scheme

Stake a Claim - Not likely, but possible

Steal Relic - I did not want to be close to Lilith without attacking

Reflections of December - Possible, and I am not sure how many more games I will have with Raspy

Bodyguard - Possible, only because I will have a fair number of SS to prevent damage.

My turn started in a fairly mundane fashion. The essence linked with Raspy, moved forward and cast pillars to cover up the middle dynomite marker. Following that the miners dug up soulstones for Raspy to use, and the Silent Ones healed the miners back to full. Each silent one, on thier activation, cast other spells to try and surge and stack my hand for later in the game. eChris used his turn more productively, sprinting and transposing models around the board and grabbing the first objective on the left of the board (from my perspective). He pulled forward and sent Lelu to work breaking down one of the pillars and activated a second objective as well. Not bad, 2 objectives on turn 1 is a strong start for eChris, and puts me a bit on the back foot.

From eChris's side of the board.

Turn 2

Turn 2 turned up the pressure with lots of action. I do not remember the exact steps of the turn (unfortunately), but to sum up it went something like this. eChris activated Lelu, smashed apart the second ice pillar, then moved over and activated a third objective. In conjunction, Lilitu drifted around the house and started luring one of my silent ones forward. I was pulled up, but resisted a couple times. My silent one activated and put up north wind, just covering Raspy where she was sitting. eChris moved his second Lilitu forward and pulled the Silent one the rest of the way into the scrum, but was not able to get any attacks through. To get some range, the second Silent one moved forward to get Raspy in range of North Wind, then popped the spell up. Lilith made a run across the street to position for the other two objectives. Raspy activated and blasted into the scrum, killing lelu with blasts and leaving the Lilitu's with some damage. Raspy finished her turn by putting up ice pillars to block Lilith from getting inside the building and grabbing her objective there. eChris ran his Tot to the back of the board, then followed up with the totem transposing one of the Lilitu's to get her to safety. I activated my miners, ate a soulstone for Overdrive, then moved forward and tunneled. At the end of the turn I shifted one tunnel marker forward (the corpse counter) and the second one to the left between the small and large houses. My goal was to threaten eChris's crew with 1 miner while the other went to deactivate dynamite.

From his side of the board

Turn 3

Turn 3 let me finish what I had started on the previous turn. eChris started by moving to threaten Raspy with his Tot. I responded by moving my silent one away from the objective and damaging the tot with her healing spell. eChris moved his rear lilitu forward to position near the center of the board and lured my silent one forward. My silent one moved closer to the tot, pulsed and killed it off. eChris moved the second Lilitu to the center of the board, getting Raspy, totem, and a silent one in melee range. Raspy activated, defensive stance, then walked out of combat. I forgot at that point to pull my totem to me with link, leaving it engaged. I tried to use my (0) spell to knock one of the Lilitu's down but failed the cast. I then followed up shooting my blast spell into combat. Flipping for the targeting in melee ended up with my targeting a Lilitu. I then flipped the red joker for my irresistible flip, realizing that had I remembered to snap my totem, I would have had that joker on my cast. I followed up with a cast and stone to drop severe damage on one Lilitu, and blast onto the second. This left one of them at 1 wound remaining, and the second at 2. Lilith then moved out from around the house, but I do not remember what she did. My totem dropped two more ice pillars to block Lilith from moving directly to Raspy next turn, then it came time for moving the Miners. Miner #1 moved to be next to Lilith, and #2 moved onto the far left objective. At the end of the turn the two Lilitu's healed one of them up to 6 wounds, and the other one died.

Turn 4

At the start of the turn, I brought both miners up from Tunneling. I won initiative (13 to a 12) and started with the Miner next to Lilith. He attacked 3 times, missing 2 attacks, and dived back below ground. Lilitu started by luring and killing a Silent One then moving forward to engage Raspy. The second silent one moved forward and pulsed near the Lilitu, putting 2 damage on her. Lilith activated, broke through the ice pillar and charged the silent one to kill her. Shatter had Lilitu down to 1 wound, and had Lilith had prevented most everything. Raspy activated and threw everything she had at Lilith, killing Lilitu in the blasting. The soulstone miner dug up another stone for Raspy, then the tunneled one moved over next to Lilith.

Turn 5 & 6

Turn 5 started with the miner popping out and then I again won initiative. The miner attacked and got a luck shot off on Lilith, killing her. Raspy then moved forward stand next to one of the activate markers. The non-insignificant miner shut off the far left objective. On turn 6 Raspy and the other miner shut off the remaining objectives.

The game ended with a win to me (very unlikely game). I think there were mistakes made on both sides, but the bulk came down to eChris focusing on his line in the sand early in the game and not picking apart Raspy's crew, allowing me to build up my stones and start picking apart his crew. Final score, Raspy 8 -> Lilith 2 (holdout).